Sausage Session, Act I

…go ahead, you can have a field day with this post! …so tonight we had our first foray into making our own sausage. Ingrid had received a meat grinder attachment for her mixer a while ago and we vowed to make use of it as a sort of little new year’s resolution. Last weekend we decided that we’ll try to make some sausage…Ingrid found a recipe in the Joy of Cooking that looked feasible…the hard part was obtaining the casings. I tried a couple of places up on Atwells Street in Providence who both directed me to the supermarket. I needed some other stuff anyways, so I headed over to Eastside Marketplace in Providence and talked to the butcher. He gladly gave me some casings, gratis! Newly armed with some casings, we decided that we should first try a test batch of sausage in patty form to see how they tasted. We ground one pound of pork, one pound of veal and a little bit of pork fatback we got at the Farmer’s Market. For spices we added some sage, thyme, nutmeg and for a little more filler, some breadcrumbs. The patties cooked up nicely, but were a little dry, so for the “official” sausage run we subtracted a little breadcrumbs, added some more fatback and a little Worcestershire sauce…we’ll give you an update on how they cook up!